New boss can’t wait to start working on main track

It is the first day after the San Diego County Fair closed and Richard Tedesco, the new racetrack supervisor, drove a grader around the practice track, preparing it for the meet, which starts July 21.
— John Gibbins / Union-Tribune

It is the first day after the San Diego County Fair closed and Richard Tedesco, the new racetrack supervisor, drove a grader around the practice track, preparing it for the meet, which starts July 21.
— John Gibbins / Union-Tribune

DEL MAR  As the new track superintendent at Del Mar, Richard Tedesco could hardly wait for the San Diego County Fair to end so he could get to work.

“I got here this morning, but I couldn’t even get my hands on the training track (until later) because of all the commotion,” Tedesco said Tuesday on the very busy backstretch here. “Now I hear I won’t be able to get at the main track until Saturday afternoon.”

Disappointed but undaunted, Tedesco will have about a day and a half to get Del Mar’s oft-maligned Polytrack surface safe and ready for an estimated 2,000 thoroughbreds that will begin arriving this weekend.

Tedesco, who turns 73 on Thursday, replaced Steve Wood, who worked in track maintenance at Del Mar since 1989. On Tuesday, Tedesco wore one of his son’s Long Beach Lifeguard jackets, which kept him dry from the unseasonable morning marine mist. Tedesco won’t have to deal with ocean rip currents off Del Mar, but the veteran track maintenance supervisor knows he’s diving into the very rough seas that swirl around the synthetic racetrack issue.

A dozen horses suffered fatal breakdowns last summer on Del Mar’s Polytrack, and some trainers have noted many career-ending injuries that don’t show up in those statistics.

“The challenge here is to have the success we had at Santa Anita,” said Tedesco, who oversaw an 83-day race meeting in Arcadia and only lost two horses in afternoon races and four in morning workouts. “I’m very proud of that. We did different things at Santa Anita because it’s a different synthetic track (polymer Pro-Ride at Santa Anita, wax-based Polytrack at Del Mar), but I come here with a positive attitude to make this track as safe and as consistent as possible.

“I like this group here. They want to make it safe and make it happen. I’ve been in this game for 40-some years, but I’ve never gotten used to seeing a horse go down. That’s why I’m here.”

Tedesco, who was involved in his family business of underground construction and has been around heavy equipment since his youth, has an ambitious plan. He wants to make Del Mar’s main track consistent for horses all day long.

Tedesco said morning workouts in the past were run on a fast, tight and firm synthetic that was 62 to 65 degrees on the surface. Meantime, afternoon races went off on a surface that heated up to over 140 degrees. The track became too loose as the Polytrack’s wax base softened.

“We need to loosen it up in the morning, so we’re going to be out here at 2 to 3 a.m. and harrow it at 3 inches instead of 2 1/2 inches, take it deeper because it was so tight,” he said. “In the afternoon, we’re going to add water to cool it. But we’ll have to watch it closely and make sure the surface is as close to how it was at 7 a.m. We want it around 90 degrees. It’s very heat-sensitive, and that’s why I’ve seen three different racetracks during a day since I started coming down here (when hired in January). The goal is to make the track more consistent.”